A new political organization wants millions of online voters to pick a bipartisan ticket to challenge the Republican and Democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election.

Unity08, the brainchild of former GOP consultant Doug Bailey and Democrats Hamilton Jordan and Gerald Rafshoon, onetime aides to President Jimmy Carter, is reaching out to voters discouraged by the partisan gridlock in Washington and offering them a chance to take part in a high-tech experiment organizers hope will change the nation's political landscape.

"We had the notion of combining two thoughts that many people call radical but are really as old as the republic," Bailey said in an interview. "We want a unity ticket, and we want a ticket that is chosen directly by the people."

Candidates interested in the Unity08 nomination must run on a ticket that includes a Republican and a Democrat or an independent and a member of a major party. The party's nominee will be selected at an online convention in June 2008 that Bailey believes will include at least 10 million people who have signed up as delegates.

"Any registered voter will be allowed to be a delegate and vote in our convention," said Bailey, who was media director of the 1976 Gerald Ford campaign before founding the Hotline, a popular online subscription source of political news. "You don't even have to leave your party, since we want delegates from everywhere."

That could change in 2008, Bailey said. More and more people are alarmed at both parties' efforts to appeal to their true-believer voters at the extreme ends of the political landscape at the potential cost of the millions of people in the more moderate middle.

"There are critical issues like Iraq, terrorism, the budget, global warming, health care and schools that are all tough, very big and very important issues, and no progress is being made on any of them," he said. "The two sides can't work together, and, frankly, that's pathetic. Worse, it's dangerous."

In California, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has talked about the need for a "post-partisan" government that's more interested in having politicians working together to solve problems than in scoring partisan political points. Even Democrat Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who took over as speaker of the House after the November election, has talked about the need to work with Republicans to deal with the nation's problems.

"Since November, we've seen an increase in talk about bipartisanship, but we don't see any more bipartisanship," Bailey said.

A poll sponsored by Unity08 before it went public last year showed that 74 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, and 82 percent said America had become so polarized between Democrats and Republicans that Washington can't solve the country's problems.

A recent CBS News-New York Times poll showed that only 57 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans were generally satisfied with their party's presidential candidates, which seems to open the door for a new presidential choice.

But trying to find those Unity08 candidates is likely to be a problem, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.

"It's hard to see how anyone would have a future as a major figure in their party after running as a third-party candidate," he said. "And out there in the brutal real world, (Unity08 organizers) will find that the major parties will fight to keep them off the ballots."

Bailey conceded that until candidates or likely candidates for the Unity08 nomination are identified, "people are opting for a process." But he also said he and other party organizers have held "totally confidential" briefings on the Unity08 nomination system for 50 to 60 unidentified people from the business and political worlds and that some of those people probably will become candidates.

Holding the online convention in June, after the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees have been decided, but before the party conventions, also could attract some of the losing candidates -- and their supporters, Bailey said.

"We're saying 'Come on in, and let's pick a candidate,' " he said.

Arranging to get listed on the ballots of all 50 states will take time and money, Bailey conceded, and running a secure, online election that can identify eligible voters and limit them to a single ballot will require some technical solutions that still have to be worked out.

But the biggest problem is attracting the millions of delegates needed to give Unity08 the political clout it needs to be seen as a true third force, an organization the two major parties have to reckon with.

So far, Unity08 has a long way to go. The 42,000 delegates who have signed up at the www .unity08.com Web site are far fewer than the 500,000 Bailey originally predicted would be on board by last January. An online poll to decide on the organization's tagline ("Taking Our Country Back" barely beat "The Moderate Majority") drew 1,465 votes. By contrast, a recent poll on The Chronicle's sfgate.com Web site drew 1,628 people voting on whether they agreed with Belmont's plan to ban smoking in apartments.

While there's abstract interest in a third-party effort to reach out to centrist voters, "it's hard to see how this is going to work in reality," Pitney said. "It's hard to get people excited about moderation."

But Bailey and the organization's other backers are convinced that millions of voters across the nation are looking for an alternative to a system they don't believe is working.

"They understand the problems and know this is the most important election in their lifetimes," he said. "There is a willingness to look at different types of answers."

Win or lose, this is a one-shot attempt to elect a president, not laying the groundwork for a new party with candidates for the House and the Senate.

"It's 'Unity08,' not 'Unity,' " Bailey said. "We want this to be a one-time jolt to both parties.

"But we're not just trying to make a point. We wouldn't be in this if we didn't believe we could elect a president and a vice president to provide new leadership."